In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sometimes people try and divide up the different characteristics of God and ignore the parts of Him that they don’t like. The most common way of doing this in our time is by talking exclusively about the love of God without ever addressing His justice or His wrath over sin. When that happens, though, we end up creating a different Jesus than the One that’s in the Bible. God’s love gets redefined into something that’s opposed to what we find in the Scriptures, and souls are led astray by a delusion. The solution to this problem, though, like every doctrinal error, is to return to the text of Scripture and pay careful attention to what it tells us.

Consider, for example, our Gospel lesson today from Luke chapter 19. That’s the account of when Jesus came into Jerusalem and predicted how it would one day be destroyed. This is an excellent passage not only for demonstrating God’s love toward sinners, and how, ultimately, He desires their salvation, but also His righteous anger towards sinners, and how eventually He will bring His judgment upon them if refuse to repent and receive His grace.

First, this text clearly shows us just how angry God can get with our sin. We see that both in the words of Jesus at the beginning of our text, as well as in His actions at the end of it. What did our Lord say about that holy city when He first saw it at the distance? “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

The name “Jerusalem” literally means the “place of peace.” It was the place that had the temple and the sacrifices. It was the place where God pictured the coming of the Savior through types and signs, and showed how He would one day suffer and die as a substitute for our sins. The people of Jerusalem had every opportunity to turn away from their sinful deeds and believe in Jesus. He taught among them. He did miracles among them. He was crucified and raised right before their eyes. And yet, as Jesus said, “they did not know the time of their visitation.” Even though they had the Scriptures that prophesied about Christ, and even though He fulfilled them at every turn, still they refused to recognize Him. Jesus came to die for them, He visited them in peace, but they wanted nothing to do with His salvation. And in response to that repeated rejection, God visited them with wrath. In 70 A.D., to be exact, at the hands of the Romans, the words of Jesus from our text came true. Jerusalem was invaded, many of its inhabitants were killed, and the temple was completely torn down. 

What happened to the people of that once great city, shows us what will happen to everyone who despises God’s Word and refuses to accept His grace during the time that God gives. Eventually, they’ll come into His judgment. It might not happen right away, because God is very merciful, but sooner or later, it will. It happened in the days of Noah. It happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. It happened to the citizens of Jerusalem. And it could also happen to us. In fact, eventually it will happen everyone who rejects God’s Word, when Jesus comes again on the last day.

Those who think of God purely in terms of modern categories like being nice, or tolerant, should also think about what Jesus did at the end of our text today and how He drove out the money changers from the temple. Elsewhere we learn that Christ made a whip of cords and physically turned over the tables there. If you can’t image your Jesus ever doing something like that, then maybe you’re not worshiping the right one. The real Jesus cares about sin. The real Jesus gets anger when people persist in their sin and won’t repent of it. This is especially true when it comes to those sins that undermine the Gospel. And that’s what was going on in Jerusalem. People were coming from all over the world to worship the Lord in His house. They traveled from faraway places and didn’t always bring with them the animals they need for the sacrifices. So, when they arrived at temple, they had to buy them from those who were already there. And what should have been an opportunity to help one’s neighbor, turned into an opportunity to make money. Whether it was through price gouging for the animals, or inflated exchange rates for the use of the mandatory Jewish currency, some people took advantage of the situation for their own personal gain. They turned God’s house into a den of thieves. And that made God mad.

Knowing and believing that God does actually get angry with sin, and that He will punish all those who refuse to repent of it, is an important truth to remember because there’s always the temptation to think that our sin really isn’t that big of a deal. That’s the most popular error of our time. It says that because God is love, that means that He must accept and approves of us no matter what we’re doing. It makes it seem as if God doesn’t care about our sin, which isn’t true at all. Of course, He cares about our sin! Just look at what Jesus did in the temple!

Even within the church we are face with the constant threat to think that we’re beyond the scope of God’s wrath. Because we’re good old Missouri Synod Lutherans, who got confirmed when we we’re younger, and take Communion a few times a year, sometimes the thought is, as long as I keep doing that, “I’m good to go no matter what else I do.” But no one is outside the possibility of falling away from the faith. No one can provoke the Lord to anger through unrepentant sin without facing consequences. The people of Jerusalem had the temple and God brought it to nothing. We our own gifts too, but if we don’t use them to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, which includes living lives according to His holy Word, then it’s only a matter of time before we’ll lose what we have too. What did the prophet Jeremiah say to the people in our Old Testament lesson, “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this, which is called by my name, and say ‘We are delivered,’ only to go on doing all these abominations?” Showing up in church doesn’t mean squat if you are embracing a life of sin outside of it. Nothing will spare you from God’s wrath if you’re living in unrepentance.

Today’s readings, and the whole Bible for that matter, teaches us to take our sin seriously. They teach us that God hates sin, and that even though He wants us to have His forgivness, if we refuse it, He will eventually judge us. 

But God does not want to judge us! He wants to save us! That’s why Jesus reacted the way that He did when He saw the city of Jerusalem. How does our text tell us that Christ reacted when He predicted what would happen in that place? It says, “and when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it.” Jesus wasn’t happy about what was about to take place. He was grieved by it. He the Lord of Glory, was so upset but it that He broke down into bitter tears at the mere sight of seeing them. As the Bible tells us, “[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” He wants everyone to turn away from their sins before it’s too late and look to Him for forgivness. 

And not only does God want that, but He is very patient for it to happen. He puts up with our stubbornness all of the time and doesn’t destroy us immediately even though He has every right to do so. As the Psalmist also says, “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” God isn’t fair. And praise the Lord that He isn’t! Even when He eventually does bring His righteous judgment down upon someone, almost every time, that doesn’t happen without repeated warnings. It took Noah 100 years to build the Ark. God gave the Canaanites 400 years until their iniquity was complete. And Jesus preached and taught and did miracles in Jerusalem for 3.

Why does the Lord put up with our sin? He doesn’t do it that that we can persist in it, but so that we would have more time to turn away from it and be saved. As Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter 2, “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

We see the patient and loving kindness of God above all in the person of Jesus Christ. Our Lord not only wept for the holy city of Jerusalem, but He went to the cross to die for sins of the people who lived there. He not only predicted how the temple would be destroyed, but He allowed His own body, the true Temple, to be torn down and raised up three days later too. Jesus bore the sins of the whole world in His flesh so that all those who repent and believe in Him would be spared from the wrath to come. He suffered God’s total judgment for sin, so that everyone who takes refuge in Him would never have to come into that judgment eternally. 

Just like there is the temptation to think that God doesn’t care about our sin, there’s also the temptation to think that He cares about it in such a way that He won’t ever forgive it. But that isn’t true either. The only reason why God shows us His wrath is for the sake of showing us His mercy. Again, He wants us to have His forgiveness. He wants to be with us. And nothing gives Him greater joy than when that actually happens. When we are sorry for our sins, God says that He’ll forgive them. When we turn away from our evil deeds, no matter how awful or how frequent they’ve been, God assures us that He’ll wash them away. That’s why His Son died. And that’s what He promises to give us in His Word and Sacraments. As we read in Isaiah chapter 55, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

So, being a Christian isn’t just about believing in God’s love, or just believing in His wrath. It’s about believing in both. Our Scriptures readings today put both of those truths in front of us so that we would learn to know God rightly and live by repentance and faith.

The city of Jerusalem is a great example. God destroyed in in 70 A.D.  by the hands of the Romans because the people there did not know the time of their visitation. Even though they had every opportunity to recognize Jesus for who He was, and what He came to do for them, they wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t turn away of their sins and instead embraced them despite God’s clear Word. May we not make the same mistake as them.

For today is the day of our visitation. Today is the day that Jesus comes to us to gives us the things that make for peace. Today God shows His loving kindness towards through His Word and Sacraments that offer us forgivness. He promises to abundantly pardon all of our sins by His grace when we come to Him for mercy. So, let us listen to the voice of our Savior, and run to Him for grace. Let us not bury our heads in the sand, and try and soothe our screaming consciences with false assurances of peace, but turn to the Price of Peace Himself who alone can give us cleansing for our souls. For just as Jesus drove out the money changes from the temple, when we come to Him in sorrow, He will drive our sins away from us as far as the east is from the west. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.